Mind and cognition
The intersection of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, specialising in embodiment, consciousness, perception, action, and situated reason
Mind and cognition is an inherently interdisciplinary and fast-moving field, in which Edinburgh ranks among the world leaders.
The group benefit hugely from research and faculty in the nearby School of Informatics (ranked number 1 in the last two UK Research Assessment Exercises) which brings together research in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence.
We also enjoy regular contact with Psychology (especially Human Cognitive Neuroscience), Linguistics (especially the unique and world-leading Centre for Language Evolution), and Music (especially the Institute for Music and Human Development).
- Informatics
- Human Cognitive Neuroscience
- Centre for Language Evolution
- Institute for Music and Human Development
Research questions
Focal topics for our research include:
| The debates concerning extended and embodied cognition | The metaphysics and epistemology of mind |
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The nature of perception and perceptual experience |
Bounded and situated reason |
| The nature of computation | Predictive coding and neurocomputational approaches to mind |
| Agency and the will | The epistemological ramifications of extended cognition |
| Phenomenology and consciousness |
People
Core faculty working in this area include:
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Research interests |
| Mazviita Chirimuuta | Dr Chirimuuta’s main area of research, currently, is the philosophy of computational neuroscience. She is examining computational explanations of neural processes and asking how these models can inform philosophical theorising about cognitive processes such as vision. She maintains an interest in philosophy of perception and is happy to supervise projects in this area. |
| Alistair Isaac |
Philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of science. |
| Philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, moral psychology, philosophy of science. | |
| Epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind. | |
| Philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of language. | |
| Metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind. | |
| Philosophy of mind, free will, mental actions, mindreading, consciousness, implicit/explicit mental processing, neuroethics, philosophy of psychology and of cognitive science. | |
| Philosophy of mind and cognitive science. |
Other faculty and post-docs with an interest in mind and cognition include:
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Research interests |
| Early modern philosophy, embodied values. | |
| Ethics, political philosophy, action theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language | |
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(History) |
Parallels and contrasts between recent philosophical theories on the embodied and extended mind, and analogous ideas in literary, philosophical, and scientific texts from the fifteenth and early-seventeenth century. |
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(Linguistics) |
Origins and evolution of language; cultural evolution; bridging scientific and artistic practice. |
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(Psychology) |
Neural control of visual perception and visually-guided action in humans. |
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(Informatics) |
Philosophical logic, the computational paradigm and conceptual foundations of cognitive science and AI, philosophy of mind and language. |
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(Informatics) |
Computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computational music analysis, combinatory logic. |
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(Informatics) |
Question answering, bioinformatics, discourse, natural language semantics, knowledge representation and inference. |
Postgraduate study
- MSc Philosophy (specialisation in Mind and Cognition available)
- MSc Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition
- PhD and MSc by Research programmes
Meetings and events
The group organises one of the university's most diverse interdisciplinary reading group: a bi-weekly interdisciplinary seminar uniting Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience, Linguistics and Informatics (the PPIG series). We also organise the computational mind reading group.
Philosophy, psychology and informatics (PPIG) reading group
Past conferences and workshops in mind and cognition
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